Failover

Failover is the mechanism that makes high availability possible. When monitoring detects that a primary system is unresponsive or performing below thresholds, failover automatically redirects traffic to a standby system. Types include active-passive (standby system takes over when primary fails), active-active (multiple systems share load, remaining systems absorb traffic when one fails), and DNS failover (redirecting domain resolution to healthy endpoints).

For AI-powered customer support, failover ensures that customer conversations are never interrupted. If the primary AI processing server fails, conversations are automatically routed to backup servers with conversation state preserved. Cloud platforms implement failover at multiple levels — server, database, network, and region — providing defense in depth against various failure scenarios.